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Don’t overuse connectors when translating into English

Posted on 1 March 2016 by Timothy Barton

One of things that can make an English translation look like an English translation is overuse of connectors, or linking expressions, between sentences. Such expressions are much more common in Romance-language texts than they are in English. Here is an example from a text I was working on this morning, used with the author’s permission.

Hay quien afirma que la traducción automática es simplemente una herramienta más de traducción. Otros, en cambio, defienden que estamos ante un cambio de paradigma en la profesión. En cualquier caso, los defensores de ambas concepciones de la traducción automática la utilizan con reticencias.

I have marked the two connectors in bold. My first draft read as follows:

Some say that machine translation is just another translation tool. Others, meanwhile, argue that it represents a paradigm shift in the profession. However, neither view is expressed without reservations.

When revising my translation, I was uncomfortable with the result, which didn’t seem to flow well. My solution was to remove the adverb “meanwhile”, which is unnecessary in English, since the words “some” and “others” already provide the necessary contrast in English. I also moved the position of “however” away from the beginning of the sentence, which is another useful technique to make English translations sound more authentic.

Macro to replace smart quotes and smart apostrophes with straight quotes and straight apostrophes in Word

Posted on 23 February 2016 by Timothy Barton

UPDATE: I no longer recommend this macro because it does not look at footnotes and text boxes. Instead, you should use the macro available here.

Many users of CAT tools like to convert smart quotes and apostrophes to straight ones before translating their documents, because if the straight versions are always used, it means concordance searches for words including apostrophes will always work.

The problem is that it takes quite a while to do this in MS Word. You can’t just find/replace the apostrophes, because even if you put a straight apostrophe in the replace box, Word will interpret it as a smart apostrophe if you have set Word up to use straight apostrophes and quotes.

Of course, you could change that setting, but then it is more complicated to convert the straight varieties to the smart varieties after exporting from your CAT tool.

The solution is to use a macro that will automatically switch smart quotes and apostrophes off, then perform the search, then switch them back on.

Here’s a macro that will do just that.

Option Explicit Sub ReplaceQuotes() ' ReplaceQuotes Macro, by Timothy Barton, Anglo Premier Translations ' Application.Options.AutoFormatAsYouTypeReplaceQuotes = False Selection.find.ClearFormatting Selection.find.Replacement.ClearFormatting


With Selection.find

.Text = ChrW(8220)

.Replacement.Text = """"
.Forward = True

.Wrap = wdFindContinue

.Format = False

.MatchCase = False

.MatchWholeWord = False

.MatchWildcards = False

.MatchSoundsLike = False

.MatchAllWordForms = False
End With

Selection.find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
Selection.find.ClearFormatting

Selection.find.Replacement.ClearFormatting

With Selection.find

.Text = ChrW(8221)

.Replacement.Text = """"
End With

Selection.find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
Selection.find.ClearFormatting

Selection.find.Replacement.ClearFormatting

With Selection.find

.Text = "´"

.Replacement.Text = "'"
.Forward = True

.Wrap = wdFindContinue

.Format = False

.MatchCase = False

.MatchWholeWord = False

.MatchWildcards = False

.MatchSoundsLike = False

.MatchAllWordForms = False
End With

Selection.find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
Selection.find.ClearFormatting

Selection.find.Replacement.ClearFormatting

With Selection.find

.Text = "‘"

.Replacement.Text = "'"
.Forward = True

.Wrap = wdFindContinue

.Format = False

.MatchCase = False

.MatchWholeWord = False

.MatchWildcards = False

.MatchSoundsLike = False

.MatchAllWordForms = False
End With

Selection.find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
Selection.find.ClearFormatting

Selection.find.Replacement.ClearFormatting

With Selection.find

.Text = "’"

.Replacement.Text = "'"
.Forward = True

.Wrap = wdFindContinue

.Format = False

.MatchCase = False

.MatchWholeWord = False

.MatchWildcards = False

.MatchSoundsLike = False

.MatchAllWordForms = False

End With

Selection.find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

Application.Options.AutoFormatAsYouTypeReplaceQuotes = True
Dim oShell As Object

Dim iResponse As Integer

Set oShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
iResponse = MsgBox("Procedure complete. Code provided by Timothy Barton, Anglo Premier Translations. Would you like to visit the website?", _

vbYesNo, "Procedure complete")
If iResponse = vbYes Then

oShell.Run ("http://www.anglopremier.com?utm_campaign=apostrophesmacro&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=blog")

Else

Exit Sub

End If

End Sub

Use old-style Excel and Word menus in new versions of Office

Posted on 17 July 2015 by Timothy Barton

A common complaint people make when they install Word 2007 (or Excel 2007) or later is that they don’t like the ribbon and prefer the menus used in Word 2003 (or Excel 2003) and earlier. Microsoft insist that things are easier to find in the new version, but many of us beg to differ. For me, my main qualm with the new version is that it takes me longer to browse through all the options than it did with the old system.

Also, certain options are in illogical places. For example, if you want to insert a row or column in Excel you’ll probably look in the “Insert” tab. But you won’t find it. It’s in the “Home” tab. Why on earth is an “insert” option not in the “Insert” tab?

The Swiss company UBit has produced an add-on that creates a ribbon tab called “Menu”, which contains old-style menus. The add-on can be downloaded from here.

Unfortunately it doesn’t allow you to open the menus with the keyboard. And that’s where I come in! I’ve produced a script to be used with UBitMenu that allows you to open up the menus using the keyboard (i.e. alt+f opens the file menu, etc.) and browse through with the cursor keys. Click here to download the script.

Once you have installed UBitMenu and my script, you can browse through the menus almost as easily as in the old version of Word and Excel.

Please note it currently only works with the English menu shortcuts, and it may not work with certain screen resolutions, as it relies on clicks on the correct part of the screen.

If you test it, please report back whether it works for you.

If you would like a version for your own language, please tell me the shortcut letters for the different menus (File, Edit, View, Format, Tools, Table and Window) in your language.

Invalid French VAT numbers – how to correct them

Posted on 19 March 2015 by Timothy Barton

On more than one occasion, I have had issues obtaining a valid intracommunity VAT number (numéro de TVA intracommunautaire) from French clients or service providers. The problems fall into two categories:

16-character or 14-character number instead of an 11-character number

Sometimes I have been given a 16-digit or 14-digit number instead of an 11-digit number. This is because the client or service provider is confusing their VAT number with their SIRET number.

The SIRET number is a 14-digit number consisting of a 9-digit SIREN number (e.g. 123 456 789, although the first two characters may be letters) followed by a five-digit NIC number, which usually starts with at least two zeros. An example SIRET number would be 123 456 789 00123.

French VAT numbers begin with the FR prefix, followed by a two-digit control number, followed by the 9-digit SIREN number. So, the company with the aforementioned SIRET and SIREN numbers might have the VAT number FR 12 123 456 789.

A 16-digit number is the result of the client or service provider adding the “FR ##” prefix to the 14-digit SIRET number, instead of to the 9-digit SIREN number.

So, if the client gives you a 16-digit number, such as FR 12 123 456 789 00123, simply drop the final five digits, and you have the intra-community VAT number (assuming the company has such a number – see below).

If the client gives you a 9-digit SIREN number, you can use an online tool to convert it to the corresponding VAT number.

But beware! The number you generate may only be a theoretical number, i.e. the number the client or service provider would be assigned if they applied for an intracommunity VAT number. But the client might not have applied. Before you can issue a VAT-free invoice under the reverse-charge mechanism you must check that they are registered in the VIES system.

Automatically move footnotes after punctuation, rather than before, in Word

Posted on 10 October 2014 by Timothy Barton

Texts in Romance languages usually place footnote markers before punctuation. In English we place them after the punctuation. I usually change this on the fly while translating, but I’ve just received a text I outsourced because it was Italian-English and the translator hasn’t moved the footnote markers. No worries! There’s no need to go through the footnotes one by one, as a quick find-and-replace routine in Word will put the footnote markers in the right place (if you prefer, you’ll find a macro at the bottom of the page). Open up the find/replace box, select “Use wildcards”, and enter the following:

Find: (^2)([.,:;\?\!]) Replace: \2\1

It should be safe to use Replace All, but if you want to play safe you can click the Find button once and then keep clicking Replace.

Explanation:
^2 = Footnote reference (same as ^f without wildcards)
[ ] = Look for any character contained in the square brackets. The ? and ! are preceded by a backslash because they normally have special meanings. The backslash tells Word to ignore the special meaning and look for a literal ? or !.
\2 = Replace with the contents of the second parenthesis
\1 = Replace with the contents of the first parenthesis

If you wish to do the opposite conversion, to convert the English format to that used by the Romance languages, run the following procedure, also with wildcards:

Find: ([.,:;\?\!])(^2) Replace: \2\1

If you have to perform either of these regularly you may want to create a macro. Here’s the code for converting to the English format:

Sub MoveFootnotesForEnglish() ' ' Macro by www.anglopremier.com (thanks to Simon Turner for converting to macro format) ' Moves footnote markers to after punctuation Selection.Find.ClearFormatting Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting With Selection.Find .Text = "(^2)([.,:;\?\!])" .Replacement.Text = "\2\1" .Forward = True .Wrap = wdFindContinue .Format = False .MatchCase = False .MatchWholeWord = False .MatchAllWordForms = False .MatchSoundsLike = False .MatchWildcards = True End With Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll End Sub

For those of you working from English to Romance languages, here’s the macro for you:

Sub MoveFootnotesFromEnglish() ' ' Macro by www.anglopremier.com (thanks to Simon Turner for converting to macro format) ' Moves footnote markers to before punctuation Selection.Find.ClearFormatting Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting With Selection.Find .Text = "([.,:;\?\!])(^2)" .Replacement.Text = "\2\1" .Forward = True .Wrap = wdFindContinue .Format = False .MatchCase = False .MatchWholeWord = False .MatchAllWordForms = False .MatchSoundsLike = False .MatchWildcards = True End With Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll End Sub

Bookmarklet tweaks

Posted on 26 January 2014 by Timothy Barton

I’ve corrected some of the bookmarklets I made available on my main website. All the bookmarklets now lead to the correct site, and the Oxford English Dictionary one now works with all words. There is also a link to a site explaining how to disable speed dial in Firefox, since the bookmarklets don’t work if you are on the speed dial page.

AHK scripts to change status in MemoQ

Posted on 20 January 2014 by Timothy Barton

These Autohotkey scripts allow MemoQ users to switch between the Confirmed, Reviewed and Proofread user statuses using the keyboard. The shortcuts are shift-ctrl-z, shift-ctrl-x and shift-ctrl-c. Users of keyboards that don’t have the z, x and c next to each other may wish to change the shortcuts in the code.


; Set "Confirmed"

SetTitleMatchMode, 2

#IfWinActive, memoQ

+^z::

setkeydelay, 20

send, !v{down 6}
sleep 100

send {Enter}

sleep 100

send, +{TAB 6}

send, c
;return to document

send +^{tab}

sleep 100

return
; Set "Reviewer"

SetTitleMatchMode, 2

#IfWinActive, memoQ

+^x::
;from Translations pane

setkeydelay, 10

send, !v{down 6}
sleep 100

send {Enter}

sleep 100

send, +{TAB 6}

send, r
;return to document

send +^{tab}

sleep 100

return
; Set "Proofreader"

SetTitleMatchMode, 2

#IfWinActive, memoQ

+^c::
;from Translations pane

setkeydelay, 10

send, !v{down 6}
sleep 100

send {Enter}

sleep 100

send, +{TAB 6}

send, p
;return to document

send +^{tab}

sleep 100

return

Website testing

Posted on 7 December 2013 by Timothy Barton

When translating a website one important aspect translators should include in their budget is website testing. It is the equivalent of reading the proofs of a book before it goes to print. In the publishing industry, translators can spot errors introduced by typesetters who are unfamiliar with conventions in a certain language, such as decimal commas in French, Spanish and other languages vs. decimal points in English.

On a website, clients often overlook menu items when sending website content to the translator for translation. Since the menu items are seemingly simple words, web designers and webmasters may decide to translate the items themselves. Unfortunately things can go wrong, as exemplified below in a screenshot from a website that, otherwise, has a good French translation.

The French word for “French” is “français”, not “française”. The latter is the feminine form of the adjective, as in “une entreprise française” (a French company). When used as a noun to refer to the language it should always be spelt “français”, pronounced with a silent s.

Similar mistakes often encountered on websites, but also on hotels and signposts, include “wellcome” instead of “welcome” and “bienvenu” or “bienvenus” instead of “bienvenue”. In Spanish the word “bienvenido” when used as exclamation agrees with the gender and number of the people being addressed, but in French the exclamation is invariable.

However tempting it may be to translate small words yourself, always check with a professional translator to avoid embarrassing mistakes that spoil your company’s image.

Try to work with a translator who is experienced in translating and localising websites. A good website translator can save you time and money by working with the source code, rather than in a Word document that you then have to reconvert to the format of your website, and will thus ensure that all the menu items and headers and footers are also correctly translated. I would recommend arranging a meeting between the person responsible for the web content, the web designer and the translator to discuss the best strategy.

Nou joc en línia en llengua catalana

Posted on 19 November 2013 by Timothy Barton

Al lloc web Apterous ja es pot jugar en llengua catalana. És un joc en què cal formar la paraula més llarga possible a partir d’una sèrie de lletres. També té unes rondes que són joc de xifres. Es pot jugar gratuïtament o pagant una subscripció de 20 lliures (uns 25 euros) per a tenir més opcions de joc. L’interfície està en anglès, però un cop que hagueu creat un compte d’usuari podeu jugar partits en català.

Apterous va ser creat per un fan del programa de televisió britànic Countdown. Aquest concurs va ser el primer programa que va aparèixer al canal britànic Channel 4 l’any 1982, i encara continua avui dia amb el mateix èxit que sempre.

El programa britànic va ser inspirat per la versió francesa Des chiffres et des lettres, a partir del qual també es va crear la versió espanyola Cifras y letras. El programa mai no s’ha emès en català, però ara es pot jugar en línia.

Ronda de lletres. També es podia jugar DEDICAT, amb 7 punts.

Es tracta d’una sèrie de rondes de xifres i de lletres. En les rondes de lletres, cal crear el mot més llarg a partir de les lletres triades. En les rondes de xifres, cal arribar a un nombre objectiu sumant, restant, multiplicant i dividint diverses xifres més petites. La versió britànica no inclou la ronda anomenada “Le duel” en francès i “El duelo” en castellà, així que no està inclosa a Apterous.

Vaig començar a jugar al web fa uns mesos, sobretot per l’interès que em va despertar el fet que un amic meu, Ross Lander, apareixia al programa. A Apterous ja es podia jugar en 13 llengües diferents a més de l’anglès (alemany, eslovac, espanyol, finès, francès, gal·lès, grec, hebreu, italià, llatí, neerlandès, portuguès i rus), però no s’hi podia jugar en català. Sabia que hi havia una llista de mots catalans en format obert que es feia servir per al joc Scrabble, així que vaig proposar al creador del web afegir la llengua catalana i ho va fer.

La llista que hem fet servir inclou les formes valencianes i balears de les paraules.

A la versió catalana hem hagut de prendre decisions sobre què hem de fer amb les lletres “especials” del català. Vam prendre les decisions següents:

Vocals accentuats: Com a altres jocs de formar mots, els accents s’ignoren. Per tant, no es distingeix entre deu i déu.
Ç: És una lletra a part, per tant no es pot escriure la paraula tenaç amb una c normal.
l·l: Per escriure un mot amb ela geminada cal tenir dues eles entre la selecció. A l’hora de declarar el mot, no cal posar el punt suspès entre les dues eles però es pot fer. Per tant, a efectes d’aquest joc, si tenim les lletres C, E, L, L, i A podem escriure tant cella com cel·la.
NY: Al contrari del Scrabble, no hi ha cap rajola NY. Per a escriure mot amb la grafia NY, cal tenir tant un N com una Y. Si s’hagués inclòs una rajola NY, la paraula banyar s’hauria comptat com un mot de cinc lletres en comptes de sis, i per això preferíem no tenir una rajola NY.
QU: Pel mateix motiu que amb la NY, al contrari que al Scrabble en català, la Q no es pot emprar com a QU.
K i W: Com que només existeixen en un grapat de mots importats i no adaptats, no s’inclouen en la versió catalana del joc

A l’hora que publico aquest article, encara no hi ha jugadors nadius de català que juguen a Apterous. Però no us preocupeu! Hi ha jugadors tan bons que aconsegueixen fer bons resultats en llengües que no parlen, només aprenent una mica sobre les estructures de les llengües. De fet, en el format de 15 rondes lletres (sense rondes de xifres), al qual he jugat diverses vegades, només tinc el 5è millor resultat amb 108, lluny darrere d’Adam Gillard (un dels millors concursants que ha aparegut a Countdown), que en té 151.

Per entendre com Adam Gillard ha anat aprenent l’estructura del català és curiós mirar la seva llista de mots no acceptats que ha jugat en aquesta llengua. Veiem com ha anant provant paraules per a aprendre la morfologia de la llengua.

D’aquesta manera, podeu preguntar en el xat si algú vol jugar en català. Els usuaris amb subscripció també poden entrenar jugant contra el bots, que són els que tenen un nom que comença amb la paraula “Apterous”.

Així que què espereu? Apunteu-vos-hi. Que tingueu sort. I doneu-me el vostre nom d’usuari perquè pugui podem jugar alguna partideta.

Un cop registrat, per a jugar en català, un cop dins la sala cal anar a “Challenge in a custom format”, “Non-English”, i “Catalan”. Després hi ha quatre opcions:

Catalan 15: La versió clàssica. Partit estàndard que té 15 rondes, 10 de lletres, 4 de xifres, i un “Conundrum” (cal trobar el mot de 9 lletres).
Catalan 9: Una versió més curta de l’anterior, amb només 9 rondes (6 lletres, 2 de xifres i un “Conundrum”.
Catalan letters: Només rondes normals de lletres.
Catalan conundrums: Només “conundrums”.

Football, fútbol, futbol, calcio II: terminology

Posted on 23 October 2013 by Timothy Barton

In Part I of this series I discussed the expression the beautiful game used to refer to association football (which I will simply call football in the rest of this post). In this part I will look at the terminology mentioned by Joseph Lambert in his own blog post, The Terminology of the Beautiful Game.

The first half of the following table shows the terminology mentioned by Joseph Lambert in English, French and Italian, to which I have included the equivalents in Spanish and Catalan and English definitions.

Entries marked with an asterisk are not specific terms, but are ordinary words that could be used to describe the same situation.

The second half of the table contains additional interesting terms, and are discussed further below.

French	Italian	Spanish	Catalan	English	Definition
petit pont	tunnel	túnel	túnel	nutmeg	When the ball is played between the legs of an opposing player.
caviar				peach, gem	An exceptionally good pass.
	doppieta	doblete	doblet	brace, double, pair	Two goals by the same player.
coup du chapeau	tripletta	hat-trick, triplete	hat-trick, triplet	hat-trick	Three goals by the same player.
	poker	póker	pòker		Four goals by the same player.
	pokerissimo, manita	manita	maneta	score five, thrashing, thrash, cricket score, *trounce	Five goals, but not necessarily by the same player.
but [goal]	gol	gol	gol	goal	If you don't know what a goal is you probably won't be interested in this article!
corner	corner, calcio d'angolo	córner	córner	corner	Ditto!

		córner olímpico	córner olímpic	goal (straight/directly) from a corner, score (straight/directly) from a corner	When the ball goes straight into the goal from a corner, without touching another player (except perhaps a small touch by a goalkeeper).
arbitre		referí, árbitro	àrbitre/a	referee	The main official in charge of a match.
		vuelta olímpica		lap of honour	When players walk around the edge of the pitch, celebrating in front of their fans.
	cucchiaio, pallonetto	vaselina	vaselina	chip	A short, high kick going over the head of an opposing player or over the arms of the opposing goalkeeper. Also used as a verb.
grand pont		*autopase	*autopase	beat, go (a)round	When a player knocks the ball past an opponent on one side and runs around the other side of him or her.
lucarne		escuadra	escaire	top corner	The area just inside where the crossbar and post meet on the goalposts.
prolongation		prórroga	pròrroga	extra-time	An additional 30 minutes of play in knockout matches when the scores are level at the end of ordinary time.
temps additionnel		prolongación, descuento, tiempo añadido	prolongació, descompte, temps afegit	injury time, stoppage time, time added on	Additional time added by the referee to compensate for time lost due to injuries, substitutions or time-wasting.

Joseph’s article does not offer a translation of manita. I believe there is no specific term in English. We would either say that a team scored five or use an expression that refers to the fact that a team were well beaten, such as the verbs thrash or trounce. The expression cricket score is often used when a team is banging in the goals. A commentator might say ‘At one stage Arsenal looked like they might make it a cricket score‘. For those unfamiliar with cricket, this is an exaggeration. Even the lowest innings score ever in first-class cricket is 26, but normally a cricket score would be in excess of 150.

An interesting term in Spanish (and Catalan) is córner olímpico, literally an ‘Olympic corner’. In English we have no such term, so we’d just have to say that a player ‘scored straight from a corner’. According to Nicolás Alejandro Cunto’s blog, the term was coined when Argentina scored such a goal against Uruguay in 1924. The Uruguayan team had recently won the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Paris, where they celebrated with a lap of honour, which in Spanish was dubbed a vuelta olímpica – an Olympic lap or tour – a term still used in Spanish – and in Catalan – to this day.

The same article by Nicolás Alejandro Cunto illustrates the much higher proportion of words borrowed from English in Latin American Spanish than in Spanish Spanish. He uses referí (referee) rather than árbitro and wing (winger) rather than lateral.

Another curious Spanish term is vaselina, literally meaning ‘Vaseline’, to refer to what in English we call a chip. In English the word chip is often used as a verb rather than a noun, so ‘marcó con una vaselina’ might become ‘chipped the ball (over the goalkeeper’s head and) into the net’.

Joseph’s article mentions petit pont (small bridge), the French term for a nutmeg. French football parlance also has the grand pont (big bridge), which is when an attacking player knocks the ball past a defender on one side and then runs around the other side of the defender. (If you’re confused by this explanation, watch this exquisite ‘grand pont’ and goal by an 8-year-old called Adam, and if you’re not confused, watch it anyway!) There is no term as precise as this in English. Although a translator could describe the action precisely by explaining the manoeuvre in detail, this is a good example of where it is better to let some information become lost in translation in the interest of maintaining good style (e.g. ‘Ronaldo beat Johnson on the right flank before unleashing a cross to the far post…’).

French refers to the top corner as the lucarne (skylight); Spanish and Catalan use escuadra and escaire respectively, both meaning ‘right angle’. The closer the ball is to the junction between the crossbar and the upright, the more likely a French writer or commentator is to say en pleine lucarne (‘right in the top corner’, or ‘in the very top corner’).

Finally, translators working between French and Spanish or French and Catalan should watch out for a false friend when referring to extra time and injury time (see the table for other synonyms). Extra time is called la prolongation in French, but in Spanish and Catalan prolongación and prolongació mean injury time; extra time is called prórroga and pròrroga respectively.

Anglo Premier blog

Category Archives: For translators